"Every time I turn around, I feel like more of my peers are entering open relationships."
Her Campus (UPenn)
Daily Nexus (UC Santa Barbara)
"This is my poly dream: that every college student in America will know the word polyamory and what it means within five years." So declared Diana Adams at a Loving More conference 4¼ years ago. Since then, more progress has happened in this direction than I expected. As the poly universe grows, its average age is certainly trending down.
For instance, a somewhat skeptical student journalist at the University of Pennsylvania writes this in an online college women's magazine:
On Open Relationships and Polyamory
By Laura Cofsky
Recently, a student in an open relationship hit on me. I didn’t reciprocate his advances. I really wasn’t interested in being the “other woman.” Well, I’m not sure what I’d be in this type of scenario....
This got me to thinking about open relationships and polyamory. Every time I turn around, I feel like more of my friends and peers are entering into open relationships.
I have one friend who practices polyamory with his wife. He is currently happily married with a baby daughter. Both he and his wife still sleep with other people.
...Polyamory is a more recent term [than open relationship]. Coined about 20 years ago, it was meant to have a more loving connotation. One issue polyamorists have with this term is that they believe promiscuous people just hide behind it. Another concern is that people who don’t practice polyamory will link the term to wild people with “pink hair.” According to an article published in The Guardian about polyamory, the former generally connotes Americans, while the latter applies more to those in the UK.
Polyamory — often taking the form of open relationships — seems to be a newer romantic model, and it is steadily growing among college-aged individuals....
...I guess [compersion] is a pretty beautiful thought. Polyamorists also claim that taking part in open relationships fits better with our biology, and I’ve certainly had plenty of people try to convince me that we’re actually hardwired to be with multiple people. I can’t find any research supporting or refuting this claim....
Read the whole article (Nov. 28, 2012).
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Here's a mention in the Daily Nexus at the University of California/ Santa Barbara:
Gay, Straight, Vanilla, Kinky, Polyamory, Femme, Butch: In the Palette of Sexual Tastes, Minorities Are Not One, But Many
By Nate Charest
From fetishism to transgender attraction to polyamorous behavior to non-heterosexuality, non-normative sexual behavior reflects perhaps most directly the twisting and fluid nature of the human subconscious — it is intertwined with our animal past, complicated by our cerebral evolution, and manifested in our daily lives....
...The more contemporary version of polyamory seems to derive itself from the concepts of free love and, more generally, communalism....
Whole article (Nov. 21, 2012).
Here's a bunch more stuff I've posted from college publications (including this; scroll down) and regarding the next generation generally.
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Labels: college
3 Comments:
While it's good that this is getting more mainstream attention, it's somewhat disturbing to me how the author of the first described article seems to equate commitment and sexual/emotional exclusivity (as do many non-polyamorous people I've met).
Yeah, I guess Every Person that's Dedicated to two Jobs Or is Committed to Two or more Children are just not Committed enough, Right?
I guess every Person that goes out to do a Free Lance Job for another company for a Night With their employer's Knowledge is some how not Committed? Or when they Babysit their Best Friend's Kid For Night, Are They Committing Parental Adultery?
All of this is Of Course, Analogous to A Open Marriage with the Wife Going out on a Sunday night with a New Casual Partner with her *Husband's Knowledge*. She's Still Committed, Just as with The Free Lancer And The Babysitter are Still Committed to their Original Jobs. What's the Damned Difference?
@myra-musing, I think those who are new to the concept of polyamory often make that mistake. The cultural meme of commitment equalling exclusivity is so thoroughly embeded in the mainstream discourse about love and commitment that anything else feels like a foreign concept until the two are examined and/or experienced separately. And I think what makes a lot of we poly people uncomfortable about that the old way of seeing it is that we learn (or are hopefully learning) that love doesn't have to come with that excessive amount of conditions involving possessiveness and ownership and right to dictate a beloved's behavior. There's a reason joking goes on about a spouse being a weight around one's neck. We generally reject that scenario entirely.
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